Do you like Metroid? If so, you'll probably like Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (ITSP.) Like 2009's Shadow Complex, ITSP is a Summer of Arcade title that borrows liberally from the Metroid formula. Unlike Shadow Complex or even the Castlevania series, ITSP iterates on a gameplay concept found only once in the Metroid series.

At one point in Super Metroid, Samus comes across three cute animals wall jumping. The key to progressing is realizing that Samus already has the ability to wall jump -- she just has to emulate the animals. Much of ITSP revolves around similar puzzles. While the game maintains a steady IV drip of new abilities, the way to move forward is rarely as simple as directly applying new powers to destroy roadblocks. Moving ahead becomes more a matter of creative application of abilities that I already have. While most Metroid style games have the players obtaining new equipment for very explicit purposes -- red missiles opening red doors for example -- ITSP's puzzles are just a bit more organic, and require a fair amount of lateral thinking.

Playing god is a risky business; there are always unforeseen consequences. Case in point: my worshipers settle a new village upon an island -- only to find their homes washed away by regular tsunamis. I, as a godlike being known only as "The Breath," decide to help them out by creating a dam to save them from the unstoppable wall of aquatic disaster. So I grab a big pile of molten lava from a nearby volcano and dump it on the edge of my worshiper's island. Upon stepping back to admire my divine handiwork (it cools into a pretty nifty dam after all), I realize that my molten lava starts setting the foliage surrounding the village on fire before cooling. With my villagers screaming as the fire speeds towards their settlement, I suck up a huge pool of water from the ocean and douse the flames which by this point (and judging by the sudden silencing of their screams), has already ruined the day for several of my worshipers. But no need to worry -- it looks like my plan works... too well. The water put out the flames all right, but it also washes away the village. In my attempts to save my village from being washed away by a deadly tsunami, I in fact cut out the middleman and wash away the village myself.

So goes a typical five minutes in Ubisoft's From Dust, the second game in this year's Summer of Arcade for XBLA. It's like a cosmic video game version of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. Here, players assume the role of the aforementioned Breath; you start off each level with a small pool of villagers and the goal of shaping the land to make it habitable enough for them to find villages at each (of up to four) totem location scattered across the map. Once they get settled, you guide your tribe to a mysterious mouth-shaped portal that leads them to the next level.

The Call of Juarez series has comfortably been akin to that distant older relative (grandfather, uncle, cousin) "from the old country." That is, well-meaning and full of interesting stories and mannerisms, but also prone to moments of slight stereotyping or racism. Yet, you could chalk that latter point to coming more from cultural ignorance rather than outright malevolence. Unfortunately, this newest installment, Call of Juarez: The Cartel, then feels like that blatantly annoying contemporary relative -- a sort of unironic Ali G.

I've called the previous COJs, "Polish Call of Duty with hats" before, in that they are linear first-person shooters that funnel players through combat and scripted moments like a rollercoaster, but with the aesthetics of the Western rather than the War Movie. Like Call of Duty 4, The Cartel attempts the bold move of shifting time periods from the olden days into the present. Though, while the previous games were homages to iconic Westerns, The Cartel feels more like a clumsy fusion of The Shield and Bad Boys II.

Superhero games should make you feel what it's like to step into the shoes of someone special. They should let you experience what it's like to wear the cape, strap on the belt, and feel power flowing through your veins. In short, the best superhero games make us feel extraordinary.

Captain America: Super Soldier is anything but.

If you had to put a name on it, I suppose you'd call Catherine a puzzle game. After all, a sizable portion of the game -- well more than half of it -- is spent pushing and pulling boxes in a series of challenges that can trace their ancestry straight back to Sokoban. A paternity test would probably show traces of Crazy Climber, Mr. Driller, and Intelligent Qube DNA in there, too, but ultimately this is a straight-up box-pushing game gussied up with stylish graphics and nightmarish hazards: Spike traps, slippery ice panels, explosives, terrified sheep, giant babies, vengeful zombie fiancées -- you know, the usual.

As puzzle games go, Catherine is really good. The challenges in the main game aren't completely limited to a single solution; there's room for plenty of improvisation and lateral thinking. The important thing is to reach the top of each stage before the bottom falls out beneath you, which is a lot harder than it sounds. Catherine is infamously difficult, and Atlus even toned down the U.S. release to make it feel less punishing. Nevertheless, even the easy difficulty setting becomes hair-pullingly difficult about mid-way through. As for hard mode, it starts out merciless and will quickly fill your mind with thoughts of murder -- of murdering yourself, perhaps, or possibly the cruel developers. Yet even at its most vicious, the game is addictive, and it's fairly generous about handing out retry opportunities. From start to finish, it has that great "one more try" feel to it.

Striking the perfect balance between story and action can be a tricky proposition; but even in these far-flung future times of 2011, developers still force players to sit patiently during lengthy cut-scenes as these tortured souls wait patiently for the chance use their controllers as God intended. While Japanese games can't seem to shake this problem, in the past decade we've seen companies like Valve give their players agency at all times, even as the talking heads surrounding them spout paragraphs of Sci-Fi exposition. Supergiant Games' Bastion approaches this specific issue in an innovative and unobtrusive way: throughout the game, a narrator describes your every action on the fly, commenting on the surroundings, enemies, and even your weapon choice. While Bastion's method of delivery could easily come off as a cheap gimmick, the narration is written with a sense of economy and sincerity, adding another layer of quality to an already stunning game.

Of course, there's more to Bastion than just a well-told story; the game itself plays like an old-school Zelda clone with a deceptive amount of depth. Bastion's silent hero (simply known as "the Kid") awakes to find the world around him annihilated without explanation; from here, the game tasks him with retrieving crystal cores from each of the ruined lands and returning them to the titular Bastion, a safe place that may help our hero -- and the Stranger, the game's narrator -- restore the life they once knew. To assist the Kid in his journey, Bastion gives him access to an array of melee and projectile weaponry ranging from hammers to dual revolvers, as well as a variety of special skills for some of the trickier enemy encounters.

"Please, please, please, don't let them break the game I loved and played for 100+ hours last year" -- that has to be the most common annual refrain of the sports gamer. And who could blame us? Having lived through The QB Vision Cone™, Read and Lead Passing™, Liquid A.I.™ Analog Spiral System™, Crease Control™, and The Truck Stick™ (only one of those ridiculous marketing terms isn't real), we've come to expect that, for the sake of adding a bullet point, the beauty and balance of a great game can be cast into disarray. Last year's NCAA Football 11 was just such a great game, and I'm more than a little relieved to report that this year's entry does nothing to damage that legacy.

In fact, to the casual observer, it would seem they've done nothing to the game... at all. That's because, while the list of updates and improvements to NCAA 12 is definitely extensive, the enhancements tend to be of the type that are either buried in menus (things like custom playbooks and custom conferences), or require some familiarity with the series to recognize their significance.

Call me old-fashioned, but my favorite platform games are not draconian time-trial-a-thons like Super Meat Boy, but good old larger-scale stuff, like the Super Mario series and most everything that imitated it. Which is why it's such a delight to see something like Splosion Man gain some popularity, make some money, and now get a sequel in the form of Ms. Splosion Man.

Although really, Splosion Man (and Ms.) is more of a hybrid of both those kinds of platformers, with longer stages that are peppered with devious tricks and traps that often require you to take a few tries until you nail the timing and get yourself ever closer to the finish line. Like her counterpart, Ms. Splosion Man is a rogue scientific anomaly trying to escape the doofy lab techs of Big Science by "sploding" all through the Science facilities and subsequent conglomerate-owned locales. Sploding is essentially jumping -- a triple-use ability that gets Ms. SM up and over (sometimes way up and way over) every obstacle that comes in her way.

When Telltale announced their next title would be a follow-up to the Back to the Future trilogy, there was a certain fear that the well-meaning developer would somehow "Lucas" (as in George) things up. As with the original Star Wars films, Back to the Future is a series that doesn't really need to be revisited; in fact, Bob Gale's clockwork-like scripts assure that every possible loose end is wrapped up by the end of the third movie -- and the screenwriter has even gone out of his way to personally address any perceived plot holes throughout this trio of films.

To go back and tamper with these airtight stories would be tantamount to movie treason, which is why Telltale was especially savvy in leaving familiar eras behind, instead concentrating on content uncovered (or only hinted at) by the original trilogy. And while Telltale's puzzles have taken a step down in creativity since the stellar Sam and Max: The Devil's Playhouse, Back to the Future: The Game does the seemingly impossible by acting as both a heartfelt tribute and a fitting follow-up to the beloved film franchise.

One of the reasons I always enjoyed the Dungeon Siege series is because long, drawn-out plot explanations aren't necessary when beating the crap out of people and collecting loot. That, or I have distorted and fond memories of Dungeon Siege 2: walking up to my character's destroyed farm, and immediately being told to pick up a weapon and kill anything that attacks me. Beat up a bunch of people? Sure, I can do that. Combat has always been the best part of these games for me. This time around, an overarching storyline gets half-heartily forced down your throat.

Dungeon Siege 3 borrows the conversation-driven storytelling approach from Mass Effect, without having as much of an influence on what occurs. Sure, there are moments where you can choose what sort of response is merited, or what action to take on, say, a prisoner of war, but these options are limited. To be frank, the fruition of your choices aren't made apparent until the very end of the game -- and with lifeless storyboard cut-scenes no less. Because of this strange disconnect (from realizing the impact of your decisions until the end), the story seems easily dismissable.

Super Street Fighter 4 Arcade Edition was released in Japanese arcades late last year, and after months of speculation as to whether it would ever see a console release, it's finally here -- both in DLC and retail format. Since then, Capcom has mentioned a few times that this will be the last entry into the Street Fighter 4 series, and is the definitive version of the game.

For those of you who grow tired of purchasing updates and don't want to be bothered with the idea of another revision coming out in the following months, this is obviously good news. For the rest of us though, who want a game that is just as balanced as the previous version, all we can do is hope that Capcom has a change of heart, and releases an update sometime down the line to fix a few glaring character balance issues.

When the original Half-Minute Hero hit the PSP in the fall of 2009, it seemed like the perfect fit for the Japanese RPG-heavy system. But at the same time, its exclusivity to Sony's handheld damned Half-Minute Hero to a limited audience, and at a full retail price that inevitably caused many to shy away from its openly-advertised lack of length. Now that Marvelous' little experiment is available for a paltry 800 Microsoft Points, Half Minute Hero: Super Mega Neo Climax's new price point makes this game a perfect addition to the Xbox Live Arcade library.

If you're wondering about the quality of the game itself, check out 1UP's original 2009 review; Half-Minute Hero is entirely unchanged from its original form, except for one small difference: a (thankfully) optional graphical "upgrade" that does its best to destroy the charm of the original game. I guess this new look could work for those opposed to the lovingly crafted sprites of the original PSP game, but if you loathe the blocky, old-school graphics of Half-Minute Hero, you're kind of missing the point -- and if you enjoy the poorly made Wind Waker-lite aesthetic upgrade, I'd like to have a few words with you. Thankfully, the original look has been preserved (via a quick option change on the main menu), and looks shockingly great on an HDTV -- as long as you're comfortable with a world bereft of anti-aliasing.

To paraphrase the T.V. show Mystery Science Theater 3000, Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D isn't really a game -- it's more of a game loaf, made from real game parts, chunked and formed. The "parts" in this case come from The Mercenaries, an extra mode found in Resident Evils 4 and 5, made to act as a pleasant diversion from the main attraction -- not a stand-alone experience. And therein lies the problem: It takes a lot of effort on the developer's part to justify selling a formerly free novelty as a $40 boxed product (also, let's not forget that RE4 and 5 can be now found for $10-and-less across many platforms). Unfortunately, Capcom didn't invest the necessary manpower in their attempt to translate this popular franchise to the newest generation of handhelds, resulting in a cynical and hateful product that's essentially Buyer's Remorse: The Game.

If you're not familiar with The Mercenaries, it's basically an arcadey version of the fast-paced horror-combat pioneered in Resident Evil 4. You choose from one of the series' many popular characters (with optional goofy costumes), enter a stage recycled from the main game, and try to stay alive as long as possible while collecting time bonuses and racking up points through a combo-based system. Performing well earns you higher grades, which unlock new characters and other goodies. The Mercenaries 3D keeps the trappings of this six year-old mini-game intact, but also throws in a few extra odds and ends engineered to drag an inherently shallow experience hours and hours beyond its expiration date.

The F.E.A.R. series has unintentionally become "that video game series I don't have time to play," for myself. Approaching this as a new fan, F.E.A.R. 3 is a terrible jumping on point to figure out things like, "who (or what) Alma is," "what's a F.E.A.R. agent," and "why is everyone attacking me?" These questions never get fully answered through the game's campaign, and if I were to judge this title solely on the merits of its single-player, it wouldn't be worth recommending. The strides it makes with co-op however -- along with its point accumulation system as well as some very tense and unique multiplayer modes -- makes this a great game to play with a giant bucket of buttered popcorn, a large Coca-cola, and some friends. This is your video game summer blockbuster.

As I mentioned before, this installment isn't the best area to start getting acclimated with Alma's saga. The narrative seems hell-bent on wrapping up various existing plot strings rather than doing enough to bring new players up to speed. This would be a moot point if I didn't care about narrative structure in my shooters, but I do -- I'm a stickler for this sort of thing. The campaign is poorly paced and does a meager job of giving me a reason why the character of Point Man exists. Some levels are also rudimentary in scope and gameplay -- insisting you find that one unlocked door in order to continue to the next area, or taking on high-level boss encounters with simple circle-strafing tactics. The A.I. makes up for these deficiencies somewhat -- it is quite remarkable to see enemies constantly try to flank my position or duck into cover when appropriate. But if it wasn't for the scoring system, the campaign would be unremarkable to play alone.

The names of the top creative talent involved in crafting Shadows of the Damned are so big that they're listed in the first line on the back of the box. And why wouldn't that be an impressive thing to tout through marketing? Damned is the collaboration of some of Japan's most creative video game talent; the combined influences of Shinji Mikami (Resident Evil 4), Goichi Suda (Killer 7), and Akira Yamaoka (Silent Hill) should be, potentially, the Voltron of Japanese-driven video games. Only it isn't. Although Shadows of the Damned has fun and interesting moments, the end product turns out to be a decent to slightly above average shooter that, at times, feels a little bland.

This isn't to say I'm down on the promise of big name collaborative projects -- some of them have led to sublime examples of timely artistic expression within a given genre (see Chrono Trigger). But there are also cases where the end results can feel mixed (see Metroid Other M). Shadows of the Damned seems destined to fill the almost-but-not-quite-there-yet grey space that exists between massive hit and huge miss. Mechanically the game resembles RE4 with a third person over-the-shoulder camera -- but with rougher edges and a more colorful palette of reds, greens, and purples. Conceptually, it's a marriage of the lurid subject matter from No More Heroes with the exploitation films of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. The game takes place in hell and follows the adventures of demon hunter Garcia Hotspur -- a Latino man on a mission to rescue his girlfriend, Paula, from the clutches of Fleming (a.k.a. the Lord of the Demons).